Kitty Take a Walk
by nikkilittle
Summary: A disabled elderly woman and the daughter who cares for her find unexpected joy in a strange little game involving a small cat figurine that was once a perfume bottle.


Kitty Take a Walk

by Nikki Little

I buried my mother exactly four months ago. It had been just her and me in the house for five long years. My mother was disabled by a stroke sixteen years ago and about ten years ago I moved in to help care for her. It took my father and me both to take care of my mother. When my father died unexpectedly five years ago, I was left to take care of my mother alone. No help from my brother at all. It was my problem. Five long hard years of doing everything alone.

The only bit of fun we ever had was a strange game which centered around an old empty Avon perfume spray bottle that looked like a cat. You took the head off to reveal the spray nozzle. You could never tell that it was two pieces just by looking at it. It was pure white with the eyes represented by sparkling crystals which would reflect even the tiniest bit of light in a dark room. Light from another room, moonlight streaming in through a window, even light coming through the curtains from a distant street lamp was enough to make the eyes sparkle. The little white cat had an enormous grin on its face. It seemed almost alive. Mom and I nicknamed the little figurine "Kitty."

The game was secretively moving the cat figurine from wherever it might be sitting to a new location. I moved the cat figurine the first time. I did it in the middle of the night when Mom was asleep. The normal location had been on a round end table with several plants located directly in front of a window and just to the left of my mother's antique roll-up desk in a cramped, crowded corner of the room. I picked up "Kitty" and put her – I was always sure the cat was a she – in the living room on an end table mixed in with some bird figurines. Mom loved her knickknacks. They were everywhere in the house.

It took Mom three days to notice that "Kitty" was gone from her usual location. She asked me because she hated for anything to be in the wrong place. She couldn't stand for curtains to hang slightly askew, for picture frames to be slightly crooked, or even for the phone cord to be twisted. Constantly straightening these things for her drove me nuts, but I suffered in silence. When Mom asked me about "Kitty," I feigned total ignorance of the affair. "Kitty just didn't get up and take a walk!" sternly declared my mother. My mother stubbornly maneuvered herself with her walker from room to room looking for "Kitty." I wondered if my silence was cruel, but didn't want to back out of my little game. I needed to have some fun just to avoid insanity in my restricted little world. Mom found "Kitty" in the living room on the end table in the corner next to the window looking out to the carport. "Kitty" hid well in among all those birds. Mom poked "Kitty" triumphantly in her walker bag and ferried her back to her usual place on the round end table with all the plants just to the left of her roll-up desk.

I left "Kitty" alone for a few days, and then, again in the middle of the night, transferred the grinning little cat to a more obvious location on top of the TV set. Mom had a few bird figurines on top of the TV set as well, and I thought "Kitty" would be happy among all those birds. "Kitty" just grinned away on top of the TV set.

Mom found "Kitty" the next morning. "Kitty take another walk?" she asked me. This time my mother did not move "Kitty" back to the round end table with all the plants. She just left "Kitty" on top of the TV with the bird figurines. This was strange behavior for my mother. She always had to have everything in its right spot. "Kitty" spent perhaps a week on top of the TV and then disappeared. I went into the bedroom with my mother's roll-up desk to check the usual location for "Kitty" on the round end table with all the plants. "Kitty" was missing from the round end table as well. Sometime during the day when I wasn't looking, my mother had snatched "Kitty." I swear I saw a grin on her face that evening.

I searched high and low for "Kitty" the next day and couldn't find her. I was totally mystified. I was also having trouble believing that my mother, who seemed to find no joy in anything, had played a prank on me.

Three days later I saw a flash from familiar crystal eyes coming from the middle shelf on a bookcase with sliding glass doors. Kitty had managed to hide from me in a spot in the bookcase that was hidden in shadow through most of the day. I felt a childish surge of mischief, snatched "Kitty," and searched for a hiding place for the peripatetic cat. The game had begun.

That was four years ago, one year after my father had died. It was the first time my mother showed any signs of interest in life. For four years we traded hiding places for Kitty becoming ever more inventive as the supply of familiar hiding places dwindled. My mother was limited to hiding places within her reach. As she used a walker to get around, she could not, like me, stand on a chair or stepstool to reach higher places. She couldn't go down the basement stairs, either. For me to hide "Kitty" downstairs was out of the question. Sometimes I hid "Kitty" in high locations such as on top of the curio cabinet in the dining room or on top of the corner cabinet in the same dining room. Since my mother could not reach "Kitty" to hide her, I always, a day or two later, relocated "Kitty" to a location within reach. Neither one of us ever admitted to moving "Kitty." Sometimes we talked about the phenomenon of "Kitty" taking a walk while we weren't looking. We had long discussions of all the possibilities: "Kitty" was being moved by a ghost in the house, "Kitty" was possessed by a restless spirit, "Kitty" was possessed by the spirit of a cat that used to live in the house. We even discussed the possibility that "Kitty" was a guardian angel making sure that we kept a sense of wonder in our lives.

And then Mom died. I was completely alone in the house. I had no one to talk to. No one to exchange hiding places for "Kitty" with. My brother was married to his banking job and a grossly obese, lazy wife who spent every dime he had on endless trips to the hospital emergency room because of migraine headaches. He certainly had no time for me. I had inherited enough money from my mother to support me for about a year if I watched my expenses very carefully and suffered no unexpected financial blows such as the car dropping dead. There was no public transportation in my city. The car was an absolute necessity. An expensive necessity. I had to rejoin the workforce after ten years of being out. I was fifty-eight years old. A sensation of doom hung over me like a shroud. I remember sometimes staring at the little cat figurine for as long as an hour at a time. I missed the little game that my mother and I had played. I hadn't realized just how much a part of my life our little bit of mischief had become.

I picked "Kitty" up from the last place I had hidden her and returned her to the round end table in front of the window by my mother's roll-up desk. I thought "Kitty" would be happy to return to the company of all those plants. Most of the plants were African Violets, but there was an Aloe Vera plant, too, and a flower that I did not recognize. I left "Kitty" on the round end table intending never to move her again. The game was over.

The job hunt went as expected: no one ever called back. I kept dialing down my hopes to the point that I began applying for restaurant jobs just like the desperate college graduates who seemed willing to slit each others' throats for a chance to wait tables part-time at Applebee's. Even the restaurants ignored my applications. I was fifty-eight years old. In the local job market, the only employed people you ever saw over fifty were those lucky affluent people in civil service jobs who had family wealth and political connections. I went downstairs and stared at my father's old Marlin hunting rifle on the gun rack in the furnace room. I opened the dusty drawer of the gun rack and found leftover 30-30 Winchester ammunition for the rifle. I considered the ever-increasing possibility that my father's hunting rifle would be the end of me when the money ran out. I spent more and more time downstairs staring at the rifle.

And then it happened. One day when I was at my mother's roll-up desk dealing with utility bills that were a never-ending drain, I saw that "Kitty" was gone from the round end table. Nothing but an empty space among the plants where "Kitty" had sat. Had I moved the figurine myself I wondered? I certainly couldn't remember it. I didn't find "Kitty" until the next evening.

I had gone downstairs for another sojourn with my father's old Marlin hunting rifle. There on the narrow shelf above the one drawer on the gun rack was "Kitty." The figurine's crystal eyes sparkled in the dim light. The grin was wider than ever.

"No! No! Not now!" the figurine seemed to say. "I want to play! Don't you have time for me?"

I blinked. The figurine's Cheshire cat grin spread ever wider. The eyes sparkled ever brighter.

"The game is not over!" whispered the grinning feline with fixed, unmoving lips. The voice filled the room, but seemed to come from nowhere. "We have much more playtime ahead of us!"

I closed my eyes. I was hearing things. Or maybe I was finally losing my mind.

"I want to play!" whispered the feline. The figurine was in front of me, but the voice seemed to come from the entire room.

I picked up "Kitty" and carried her back to the round end table next to my mother's roll-up desk. Back among the African Violets and the Aloe Vera plant. Would I have shot myself that night if the cat figurine had not been on the gun rack shelf? I have no way of knowing for sure.

I didn't even notice the next time "Kitty" disappeared. I found her again the next time I went downstairs to my father's gun rack. "Kitty" was on the gun rack shelf again, eyes sparkling and alive.

"There's always tomorrow!" insisted "Kitty." "Play with me! We've always had so much fun together!" The voice echoed in my head.

I moved "Kitty" back upstairs to the round end table with the African Violets and Aloe Vera plant. A day later a pizza parlour called and wanted me to work in the kitchen 28 hours a week. Seven hours a day for four days a week. Minimum wage. No benefits. It was better than nothing. Every time I came home from the pizza parlour, "Kitty" was gone from the round end table. I always immediately searched for her and found her within 15 minutes. I always carried her back to the round end table. Every time I found "Kitty" in a new location, she grinned away in a manner that seemed positively alive, and her eyes sparkled with mischief.

The End

This story is completely original, and is entirely mine.

Version 2


End file.
